Beware of the Toll Keepers: The Ethics of Geoengineering Ethics

摘要

At the origins of bioethics, Daniel Callahan argued that if these newfangled bioethicists were going to be useful to physicians and policymakers, they would need to offer something like a recipe for action. He said the trick is to develop a 'normative ethic, which can presuppose some commonly shared principles' (1973). In time, 'principlism' came to dominate bioethics in the U.S. for just this reason: any ethical quandary could be laundered through the shared principles of autonomy, beneficence and justice. After all, who could disagree with those? Bioethicists came to wield authority just like any instrumental version of expertise (like, say, engineering): they had a standardized process for cranking out answers to questions. Yes, they were answering questions about values, but they had a value-neutral method!